Thomas Hodgkin

“ John, archbishop of Ravenna, acted as mediator. It was stipulated that Ravenna should be surrendered, that Odoacer’s life should be spared, and that he and Theodoric should be recognized as joint rulers of the Roman state. The arrangement was evidently a precarious one, and was soon terminated by the treachery of Theodoric. He invited his rival to a banquet in the palace of the Lauretum on the 15th of March, and there slew him with his own hand. “Where is God?” cried Odoacer when he perceived the ambush into which he had fallen. ”

“ As the battle which terminated this campaign, the battle of the Frigidus, was fought near the passes of the Julian Alps, Alaric probably learnt at this time the weakness of the natural defences of Italy on her northeastern frontier. The employment of barbarians as foederati, which became a common practice with the emperors in the 4th century, was both a symptom of disease in the body politic of the empire and a hastener of its impending ruin. ”

“ A certain Edica, chief of the Scyrri, of whom Jordanes speaks as defeated by the Ostrogoths, may more probably have been the father of Odoacer, though even in this theory there are some difficulties, chiefly connected with the low estate in which he appears before us in the next scene of his life, when as a tall young recruit for the Roman armies, dressed in a sordid vesture of skins, on his way to Italy, he enters the cell of Severinus, a noted hermit-saint of Noricum, to ask his blessing. ”

“ The effect of the imperial organization was to wring the last solidus out of the emaciated and fever-stricken population of Italy, and the belief of his subjects was that no small portion of their contributions remained in the eunuch’s private coffers. At the close of 565 Justinian died, and a deputation of Romans waited upon his successor Justin II., representing that they found “the Greeks” harder taskmasters than the Goths, that Narses the eunuch was determined to reduce them all to slavery, and that unless he were removed they would transfer their allegiance to the barbarians. ”

“ They raised him on a shield and acclaimed him as a king; leader and followers both resolving (says Jordanes the Gothic historian) “rather to seek new kingdoms by their own labour, than to slumber in peaceful subjection to the rule of others.” ”

“ The dethroned emperor Nepos sent ambassadors (in 477 or 478) to Zeno, emperor of the East, begging his aid in the reconquest of Italy. These ambassadors met a deputation from the Roman senate, sent nominally by the command of Augustulus, really no doubt by that of Odoacer, the purport of whose commission was that they did not need a separate emperor. One was sufficient to defend the borders of either realm. ”

“ In the spring of 552 Narses set sail from Salona on the Dalmatian coast with a large and well-appointed army. It was a Roman army only in name. Lombards, Heruli, Huns, Gepidae and even Persians followed the standard of Narses, men equal in physical strength and valour to the Goths, and inspired by the liberal pay which they received, and by the hope of plunder.
The eunuch seems to have led his army round the head of the Adriatic Gulf. ”

“ Marshes were drained, harbours formed, the burden of the taxes lightened, and the state of agriculture so much improved that Italy, from a corn-importing, became a corn-exporting country. Moreover Theodoric, though adhering to the Arian creed of his forefathers, was during the greater part of his reign so conspicuously impartial in religious matters that a legend which afterwards became current represented him as actually putting to death a Catholic deacon who had turned Arian in order to win his favour. ”

“ Narses was short in stature and lean in figure. His freehandedness and affability made him very popular with his soldiers. Evagrius tells us that he was very religious, and paid especial reverence to the Virgin, never engaging in battle till he conceived that she had given him the signal. Our best authorities for his life are his contemporaries Procopius and Agathias. See Gibbon, Decline and Fall, vols. iv. and v., edited by J. B. Bury (1898) . (T. H.)
↑ Gibbon’s statement that Narses was “the first and most powerful of the exarchs” is more correct in substance than in form. ”

“ In an unimportant engagement near Pesaro he was worsted by the Roman generals, and this hastened his northward march. At Ceneda in Venetia he died of a raging fever. Pestilence broke out in his army, which was so wasted as to be incapable of further operations in Italy. Meanwhile his brother Buccelin, whose army was also suffering grievously from disease, partly induced by free indulgence in the grapes of Campania, encamped at Casilinum, the site of modern Capua. Here, after a time, Narses accepted the offered battle (554) . ”

“ Theodoric took the chief part in this expedition, the result of which was to remove the Ostrogoths from the now barbarous Pannonia, and to settle them as foederali in the heart of the empire. About 474 Theudemir died, and for the fourteen following years Theodoric was chiefly engaged in a series of profitless wars, or rather plundering expeditions, partly against the emperor Zeno, but partly against a rival Gothic chieftain, another Theodoric, son of Triarius. [1] In 488 he set out at the head of his people to win Italy from Odoacer. ”

“ Milan, which was holding out for the Romans, was also hard pressed by famine. The two generals who were sent to relieve it loitered disgracefully over their march, and, when Belisarius wished to despatch further reinforcements, the commanders of, these new troops refused to stir till Narses gave them orders. Belisarius wrote to the eunuch pointing out the necessity of unity of purpose in the imperial army. At length, grudgingly, Narses gave his consent, and issued the required orders ”

“ At the age of seven he was sent as a hostage to the court of Constantinople, and there spent ten years of his life, which doubtless exercised a most important influence on his subsequent career. Soon after his return to his father (about 471) he secretly, with a comitatus of 10,000 men, attacked the king of the Sarmatians, and wrested from him the important city of Singidunum (Belgrade) . In 473 Theudemir, now chief king of the Ostrogoths, invaded Moesia and Macedonia, and obtained a permanent settlement for his people near Thessalonica. ”

“ In this capacity, in 530, he received into the emperor's obedience another Narses, a fellow-countryman, with his two brothers, Aratius and Isaac. These Persarmenian generals, having formerly fought under the standard of Persia, now in consequence of the successes of Belisarius transferred their allegiance to the emperor Justinian, came to Constantinople, and received costly gifts from the great minister. ”

“ Three months later Stilicho himself and the chief ministers of his party were treacherously slain in pursuance of an order extracted from the timid and jealous Honorius; and in the disturbances which followed the wives and children of the barbarian foederati throughout Italy were slain. The natural consequence was that these men to the number of 30,000 flocked to the camp of Alaric. clamouring to be led against their cowardly enemies. ”

“ Fredegarius (so-called) , who probably wrote in the middle of the 7th century, and Paul the Deacon, towards the close of the 8th, supply the saga-like details, which become more minute the farther the narrators are from the action. On the whole, the transaction, though it is too well vouched for to allow us to dismiss it as entirely fabulous, cannot take its place among the undoubted facts of history. ”

“ His kingship seems to have marked only his relation to his Teutonic followers, among whom he was “king of the Turcilingi,” “king of the Heruli,” and so forth, according to the nationality with which he was dealing. ”